Chapter 83

This short sword, due to Liu Ming's cultivation restrictions, could not unleash its true power. Of the sixteen layers of restrictions it carried, he could only activate three or four at most.

However, even so, this sword could change size at will after being refined, and he could also activate the restrictions on it, making its power far superior to those so-called talisman weapons.

After thinking this over, Liu Ming immediately threw the sword in front of him, and it floated in the air. He continuously made hand seals and chanted incantations, while continuously spraying essence energy onto the short sword, which was quickly absorbed, making it increasingly cold and menacing.

However, the difficulty of refining this short sword far exceeded Liu Ming's initial expectations.

It was unclear whether it was because his current cultivation was relatively low for this mid-grade spirit sword, or whether refining spirit weapons was inherently difficult.

He spent seven days just refining the first layer of restrictions on the flying sword, half a month for the second layer, and two months for the third layer, barely managing to activate them.

As for the fourth layer of restrictions, after several days of refining, he realized that it was beyond his current capabilities. He would likely have to wait until he reached the peak of the Spirit Disciple stage to have any hope of refining it.

During these nearly three months, the mysterious bubble had not shown any signs of activity.

This made Liu Ming somewhat uneasy, and he decided to start studying the basic alchemy manual he had bought from the Wei Prefecture market.

After all, once he reached the late-stage Spirit Disciple, the price of magic-enhancing pills would skyrocket, and the variety would become much rarer. Taking low-grade pills alone would be far from enough to push his magic power to the peak of the late-stage Spirit Disciple.

Therefore, he now had certain requirements for the quality of the pills.

If he reached the Spirit Master stage, his requirements for magic-enhancing pills would become even more stringent, and later on, he might not be able to buy satisfactory pills with just spirit stones.

Thus, Liu Ming naturally hoped to master alchemy as soon as possible.

This alchemy manual, though seemingly simple, introduced the basic knowledge of pills and some common alchemy techniques.

According to the book, an alchemist should ideally be proficient in fire or wood attribute cultivation techniques. Of course, if they possessed the legendary spirit flame, it would be even better.

At the beginning, learning alchemy was relatively easy to get started with, as its essence was to decompose and recombine medicinal herbs, then condense them into pills using high temperatures. As long as one was not too foolish, they could easily learn the general process.

The only problem was that learning did not mean one could truly refine pills.

After all, the successful refinement of each pill required the alchemist to have excellent control over material mixing, temperature control, and the timing of pill extraction.

Even a slight deviation in any one of these areas could lead to the entire refinement process failing.

These skills were mostly unteachable and could only be mastered through extensive practice.

Therefore, even the most skilled alchemists could not guarantee a 100% success rate when refining even the simplest pills.

As for beginners, the success rate of refining the simplest pills could be shockingly low.

It was common for beginners to fail to refine a single pill after hundreds of attempts.

For the refinement of mid- to high-grade pills, the formulas were more complex, and the materials were rarer, making it impossible to practice. Most of the time, alchemists relied on their previous experience, which naturally made the requirements even higher.

A true alchemist required countless hours of practice and a massive amount of resources to appear.

This naturally led to a scarcity of alchemists in the cultivation world, and only the major sects had the ability to cultivate true mid- to high-grade alchemists.

The first alchemist of the Poison Spirit lineage in the Savage Ghost Sect was only a mid-grade alchemist, but his status within the sect was vastly different from other Spirit Masters, and no one dared to offend him easily.

After finishing the entire basic alchemy manual, Liu Ming felt an urge to try. After a brief hesitation, he selected the most commonly used辟谷丹 (Pigudan) from the basic formulas at the back, studied it carefully, and then took out a set of alchemy tools and some materials, truly beginning to attempt grinding and mixing...

Five days later, a muffled sound came from the cultivation room. A black smoke emerged from a white cauldron fiercely burning in front of Liu Ming, and a faint burnt smell spread out.

Seeing this, Liu Ming's face darkened, but he still dispersed the flames around the cauldron with a hand seal.

This was already his failure with the unknown number of cauldrons, and he had not managed to refine a single Pigudan.

Although the books had already stated that this was normal for beginners, Liu Ming was still greatly discouraged, his initial enthusiasm turning into deep disappointment.

More importantly, he had already consumed a significant portion of the alchemy materials he had purchased.

This made him feel a great deal of pain, and he stopped practicing alchemy, planning to find more alchemy manuals within the sect or seek advice from an alchemist before considering restarting the refining process.

Thus, in the absence of pills to take, Liu Ming could only slowly cultivate the Bone Meditation Technique using his talent for multitasking.

Time passed, and another three months went by in the blink of an eye.

During this time, nothing abnormal happened, and Liu Ming began to feel uneasy, even suspecting that the mysterious bubble had disappeared from his body.

But on this day, while he was cultivating, he suddenly felt a tremor in his spirit sea, and a devouring force immediately surged out.

The mysterious bubble, after a year of inactivity, finally appeared again.

Liu Ming, startled, immediately summoned the White Bone Scorpion and communicated with it using the Spirit Communication Technique, then began to desperately control his magic power using the Bone Meditation Technique.

This time, the devouring force was even more intense than before. If not for Liu Ming's advancement to the late-stage Spirit Disciple, which had increased his magic power by three to four times, he might have been drained dry in a short time.

Even so, the bubble still sucked away nearly eighty percent of his magic power before stopping, seemingly satisfied.

During this time, Liu Ming did not feel any lifespan being stripped away, and he felt a great relief.

However, when the bubble burst inside his body, Liu Ming's vision went black, and he found himself in the gray space again.

The space was the same, but it was clearly much larger, now spanning over thirty zhang.

Along with Liu Ming, the White Bone Scorpion, which was mentally linked to him, also appeared.

The ghost creature was clearly stunned by its appearance in another place but quickly became excited upon recognizing the area and began to crawl around enthusiastically.

Liu Ming did not ask the White Bone Scorpion much and, after a light sigh, his expression relaxed.

It seemed that although the mysterious bubble's devouring force was becoming more intense each time, the intervals between appearances were also getting longer, which was good news for him.

If the interval between this appearance and the previous one was almost double, the next appearance should give him about two years of buffer time.

Of course, this was just a guess, and whether it would really be that long was uncertain.

He would need the mysterious bubble to appear a few more times to truly understand its pattern.

After pondering for a while, Liu Ming made hand seals and prepared to cultivate the Fireball Technique, which he had already mastered.

...

Six months later, a giant fireball about three feet in diameter slowly rotated between Liu Ming's hands. With a shake of his arm, it flew out with a whistling sound.

With a "boom," a mushroom-shaped black-red cloud rose on the opposite fog wall, causing the entire space to tremble slightly.

Liu Ming's face showed satisfaction, and a crimson symbol in his mind dissipated.

Of course, the giant fireball was not an ordinary Fireball Technique but the result of combining several fireballs, giving it such terrifying power.

Although both were low-grade spells, the Fireball Technique, when cultivated to the peak of the Great Perfection stage, greatly enhanced its destructive power, far surpassing the Wind Blade Technique.

Liu Ming sat on the ground, preparing to recover the mental energy he had consumed.

However, when he glanced over, he saw the White Bone Scorpion furiously stabbing a nearby fog wall with its tail hook.

The originally lightning-fast black tail hook, under the White Bone Scorpion's control, now created several identical black streaks, and the black spikes at the front emitted a sharp whistling sound.

Liu Ming smiled.

Since he had brought the bone scorpion into this space, besides wanting a living companion for the long time, he also intended to train it.

Since he could improve his spell proficiency in this space, the White Bone Scorpion should be able to do the same.

Now, it seemed his idea was correct. The bone scorpion's stabbing speed had increased by two or three points compared to six months ago.

Don't underestimate these two or three points!

The tail hook stabbing was the scorpion's fastest and most powerful attack. With this improvement, its destructive power had almost doubled.

Thus, he felt even more confident in letting the bone scorpion continue its practice.

After resting for a while, Liu Ming began to consider which spell to cultivate next. The Water Arrow Technique, in terms of power and speed, could not compare to the Fireball Technique or the Wind Blade Technique, so he did not plan to waste time on it.

Thus, he naturally considered the other higher-grade spells he had recently learned.